The National Mediation Board has certified the Association of Professional Flight Attendants to represent flight attendants at American Airlines and US Airways, the union said today.

The APFA, which has represented American’s 16,700 flight attendants, also will represent 8,400 legacy US Airways flight attendants as the collective bargaining agent. The two airlines merged in December, but many operations are still separate.

“We look forward to working with APFA as the representative of American’s 24,000 flight attendants,” American spokesman Paul Flaningan said. The “leadership and professionalism” of the APFA and the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, which represented US Airways flight attendants, has “benefited their members and the merger process.”

The news follows the NMB’s conclusion last month that American and US Airways are a “single transportation system,” as requested by the flight attendant unions of the two carriers. The APFA and the AFA-CWA reached an agreement in January that APFA would be the union for both airlines’ flight attendants.

“There is still a great amount of work to be done,” APFA president Laura Glading said today in a letter to members. (See the full letter below.)

The Joint Negotiating Committee is in its final month of bargaining, Glading said. After that, members of the team and union leadership will tour each combined base at the two airlines to meet with flight attendants about the status of negotiations and what the next steps are, she said.

In the meantime, the AFA-CWA will continue to administer the US Airways contract and the APFA will handle non-contractual issues, such as government affairs, for US Airways flight attendants. Once a joint collective bargaining agreement is in effect, the APFA will administer it.

US Airways flight attendants can sign up to access to the APFA website and the APFA Hotline. The AFA-CWA-managed websites will remain active for a while as the APFA combines all information onto one website.

The heads of pilot unions at 13 regional carriers have signed a joint statement vowing to fight together to head off contract concessions.

CORRECTION, 4:55 p.m.: Although his name appeared on the document, the signature of Piedmont Airlines MEC chairman Bruce Freedman was not on it, the document stated that his signature was “pending” and I’m told he declined to sign.

Including are the heads of three unions that turned down new contracts recently – Envoy Air (American Eagle Airlines), Republic Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines – and one union that approved a contract last year, PSA Airlines.

Here’s their joint statement:

The regional airline industry has seen a paradigm shift in recent months. Pilots at multiple carriers have overwhelmingly said “NO” to concessions. With the shortage of qualified pilots who are willing to fly for substandard wages and inadequate benefits at fee-for-departure carriers, the time is now for true cooperation.

Today, we are committing to coordination and support across pilot groups and unions. We will work together to set and achieve meaningful cornerstone standards. A pilot is a pilot, and the days of whipsawing one group against another by regional or mainline management is over.

I received several emails this fall from American Airlines employees who were dismayed that American would take up to 120 days to refund the health insurance premiums that the employees have prefunded through the years.

However, a couple of Transport Workers Union locals have posted this message for members on Friday, from American:

“We are working to send the refunds of employee retiree medical prefunding contributions early, and are hopeful to have the checks to employees in December. We anticipate being able to share the mailing date next week, after all of our reviews are complete.”

The employees’ pre-funding was American’s way to hold down its costs for retiree health insurance. Back in the 1990s, AA started requiring employees to “pre-fund” the insurance if they wanted AA to pay for insurance premiums after they retired.

But the new labor contracts do away with AA-paid insurance after retirement. As part of that, American is refunding the money the employees put up over the years to pre-fund the insurance.

So, the employees are only getting their own money back, but it’ll surely be welcome sooner rather than later.

UPDATE: A TWU official elaborated/clarified/corrected the above, by sending me this language from the TWU/AA agreement:

“During the restructuring agreement negotiations, the parties agreed that upon implementation of the changes to the Retiree medical plan program an active employee who currently prefunds for retiree medical will be refunded the employee’s prefunding account (which reflects investment experience), excluding employees who have already received employee prefunding refunds.”

“In addition, the parties agreed that contingent on the successful resolution of the Section 1114 process, as soon as practicable after termination of the Trust Agreement for the Group Life and Health Benefits Plan for Employees of Participating AMR Corporation Subsidiaries (Union Employees), the Company prefunding contributions for each participating active employee, and investment earnings attributable thereto, will be distributed to the employee (subject to applicable tax withholdings and/or excise tax), excluding employees who have already received refunds of their employee prefunding accounts. The refund will be made to the employee no later than 120 days following September 12, 2012.“

By my calculation, 120 days from Sept. 12 would be Jan. 10, 2013.

UPDATE #2: A note on my use of the word “quickly” — the original emailers were under the understanding that they wouldn’t get their money back until next spring. It was, in fact, 120 days from Sept. 12.

Officials of the Allied Pilots Association today laid out the pros and cons to American Airlines’ pilots as they vote on a tentative agreement.

In its online letter to members, the APA doesn’t tell pilots how to vote, but its list of “yes” vote gains and benefits (five) clearly outweighs the list of “no” losses and disadvantages (seven).

“We have not made any personal comments on how we plan to vote,” the letter said. “Instead, we have tried to remain as neutral and objective as possible.”

However, the letter also stated: “Some within APA believe that our best hope lies in the resumption of Railway Labor Act negotiations after AMR emerges from bankruptcy. We won’t speculate on that, but if past performance is any indication of future results, it would be unwise to expect much benevolence from AMR management. Instead, we recommend that we trust and heed the expert counsel we are receiving from our advisers.”

The APA said a key priority has been to reach pay parity with Delta Air Lines and United-Continental about three years from a date of ratification, which is a “far shorter period of time than it took those pilot groups to go from bankruptcy to their current compensation levels.”

Voting ends at noon Central Time Wednesday. The APA plans to announce voting results on Wednesday.

Suffice to say the APA and American have a lot riding on the vote. The airline said Friday that it will ask U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Sean Lane to toss out the collective bargaining agreements of unions that reject the company’s latest contract proposals.

Here’s the full APA letter of Aug. 6, 2012:

Fellow pilots,

As the tentative agreement voting deadline approaches (noon Central Daylight Time on Wednesday, Aug. 8), we want to take this opportunity to recap recent events and some of the ramifications of a “yes” or “no” vote.

Late last week it was announced that the United and Continental pilots have reached a tentative agreement for a new joint collective bargaining agreement. While details are not yet public, indications are that the agreement provides for significant improvements in the compensation of the United and Continental pilots. I say congratulations to our fellow pilots at United and Continental for this important accomplishment.

We have been in regular communication with the pilot union leaders at Delta, United and Continental in refining our strategy to transition from bankruptcy negotiations to arrive at an industry-standard pilot contract as quickly as possible. As you know, all of those pilot groups went through bankruptcy—and mergers—and have finally turned pattern bargaining in a positive direction.

Last year when it became evident that a Chapter 11 restructuring of American Airlines was a distinct possibility, APA identified and retained a team of legal, financial and restructuring experts who are acknowledged leaders in their respective fields. Based on the recent experiences of other pilot groups, we were well aware that Chapter 11 is not a labor-friendly process. We knew that expert help would be absolutely vital.

We have crafted a strategy to achieve the following objectives: 1) preserve your contract to the best of our abilities; 2) reinvigorate American Airlines through consolidation and create an airline with the route structure and revenue base essential to our long-term career success; and 3) negotiate to achieve industry-standard pay on par with the other network carriers in the shortest period possible. We believe we are on track to achieve all these objectives.

A key APA priority is to arrive at pay parity with Delta and United approximately three years from a date of ratification. That is a far shorter period of time than it took those pilot groups to go from bankruptcy to their current compensation levels (Delta pilot contract and United-Continental TA).

We recognize that many of the “no” arguments seem compelling:

• “If AMR wants us to vote for this tentative agreement, it must be bad.”
• “By voting no, we’ll go back to the table and management will sweeten the deal like they always have.”
• “If we vote yes, we’ll end up working under this sub-standard contact for 10 years.”
• “AMR must have consensual CBAs to exit bankruptcy.”
• A “yes” vote would empower AMR management.

By contrast, a “yes” vote can seem more like a leap of faith, with what sound like counter-intuitive arguments in favor of ratification. We’re also aware of the distractions that have presented themselves during the voting period, including the varying accounts of the recent meetings some pilots had with senior Flight Department representatives. None of us were at those meetings, so we won’t try to reverse-engineer the conversation. This much we do know: as professional pilots, we’re trained to filter out distractions and focus on the task at hand, which is what we all must do at this critical juncture.

To summarize the choice confronting us:

What happens if we vote “yes?”

A “yes” vote transfers the provisions of management’s “last, best, final offer” into our current collective bargaining agreement. Major highlights include the following:

• An unsecured claim equivalent to 13.5 percent of the equity distributed by AMR to its creditors. Our advisers agree that this claim—likely making APA the airline’s largest stakeholder—would give us significant influence over key decisions to come concerning the future direction of American Airlines. This claim will eventually be monetized and distributed to members as determined by the APA Board of Directors.
• Pension contributions of 14 percent to a direct contribution pension plan.
• Hourly pay rate increase of 4 percent and subsequent pay increases of 2 percent, with a mid-contract market adjustment (36 months after date of signing, a percentage pay increase based on average of DAL, UAL/CAL and USA rates).
• Current duty rigs preserved.
• More favorable scope protections than the language contained in management’s April 19 term sheet.

What happens if we vote “no?”

A “no” vote likely results in the judge granting management’s motion to abrogate our contract. If the judge does so, management has stated that they will impose the April 19 term sheet, which would result in:

• No unsecured claim. APA would seek recovery of an unsecured claim through negotiation and litigation, but based on recent airline bankruptcies our recovery could likely be significantly less than 13.5 percent. No unsecured claim means less influence for the remainder of the restructuring process and no ability to monetize that claim for the benefit of our pilots.
• The pension contribution level contained in management’s April 19 term sheet is contingent on reaching a consensual agreement, and it is not at all clear that management will continue the 11 percent current contribution absent a consensual agreement.
• No hourly pay increases and no indexing to industry-average pay rates at year three. This change alone would cost American Airlines pilots more than $500 million.
• Loss of current duty rigs—elimination of E and G time, F time reduced to 1 for 4 for layovers over 29 hours. This could significantly degrade our overall quality of work life.
• Scope changes to include outsourcing of 88-seat and 114,500 lb. jets at commuter carriers, no restrictions on commuter, domestic or international code sharing in any market.
• Loss of all furlough protection. A quick ramp-up of productivity and outsourcing could result in significant furloughs.
• Large uncertainty as to the actual consequences of working without a contract. Negotiations would resume, but there’s no way to predict how long it would take to achieve meaningful progress.

The legal process we find ourselves in contains a lot of gray areas. We’re compelled to use terms such as “likely” and “probably”—unfamiliar territory for pilots more accustomed to dealing with the immutable laws of physics. On the other hand, we’re also trained to practice risk management to mitigate the risks associated with the unforgiving environment in which we earn our living.

As those who have attended the road shows understand, we have not made any personal comments on how we plan to vote. Instead, we have tried to remain as neutral and objective as possible. Our goal has been to present as much information as we could so you have the same set of facts that your leadership has been absorbing during the past several months.

Our advisers, however, have been adamant that the best way to have control over our own destiny is to put the 1113 process behind us and secure the claim, which will make APA the single largest stakeholder of American Airlines. Instead of trying to parse the math, it is very illustrative that when corporate raiders go after control of a company, they often succeed by holding as little as 6 to 8 percent of their target.

In bankruptcy, labor is almost always faced with choices ranging from bad to worse. Some within APA believe that our best hope lies in the resumption of Railway Labor Act negotiations after AMR emerges from bankruptcy. A key element of this strategy hinges on the operative word “hope.” What would be different about a new round of RLA bargaining compared with what we went through during the five years preceding AMR’s Chapter 11 filing? One big difference is that management would have a large cockpit cost advantage with an imposed April 19 term sheet. How eager would management be to give up their dream sheet of imposed terms of employment? We won’t speculate on that, but if past performance is any indication of future results, it would be unwise to expect much benevolence from AMR management. Instead, we recommend that we trust and heed the expert counsel we are receiving from our advisers. Chapter 11 restructuring is their area of expertise, not ours.

Regardless of how the vote turns out on Wednesday, we thank you for this opportunity to represent you during the most challenging period in our airline’s history. We have fought a hard fight—one that has gotten everyone’s attention. We have spent countless hours poring over information, documentation and briefings with our team of subject-matter experts who have helped us navigate this difficult process. We’ve agonized over decisions and the limited options before us, but have never wavered in seeking the best solutions for the pilots we represent. We have led you to what we believe is the best possible position in our current circumstances. Now the decision is yours and we have done our best to ensure you’re able to make an informed one.